public; the other ten represent equally employers and employees. Its functions are "to bring about a settlement by mediation and conciliation of every controversy between employers and employees in the field of production necessary for the effective conduct of the war." This board since its formation has been kept busy settling disputes. It has no real power to enforce decisions against labor, other than that of patriotic appeal. In many cases this has proved effective. There is always a tendency where disputes over wages are involved to grant a higher scale, and where shop regulations are concerned to favor the demands of the union. It is the easiest way to avoid difficulty, however hard it may be on the employer. Employees who are dissatisfied with the decisions can strike and sometimes they have done so. Five thousand machinists at Bridgeport recently went out because they objected to the board's award of an increase in wages to all employees receiving under seventy-eight cents an hour, but establishing no increase above that rate. This strike ended only when the President made a personal appeal to the

Patriotic rally for ship-builders in hull of a wooden ship building at Seattle, Washington.
The speaker, a representative of the U. S. Department of Labor, is urging the men to stand by the government.

loyalty of the men and warned them that those who persisted in striking would not be employed in any other government work. This strike delayed for two weeks work on thousands of machine-guns so urgently needed by the soldiers who are fighting our battles. Dissatisfied employers can do little. They cannot strike and the government has power to take over their plants. Recently a large munition company asked the government to take over its factories, maintaining that it could not manage its business efficiently on the lines laid down by the board for the dealings with the employees.

As regards labor, the country is on the horns of a dilemma. Every rise in the cost of living is followed by a demand for-in fact, a need of— higher wages. Every time wages rise the cost of living goes up.

The railroads are a case in point. In the years 1916 and 1917 the railroads increased wages of their employees approximately $350,000,000 a year. In the same period their earnings were strictly limited by the rate rulings of the Interstate Commerce Commission, and

they were hard put to it to find money for needed improvements in lines and rolling-stock. After we went to war, with the co-operation of the government, their operation was unified under the charge of a committee of executives known as the Railroads War Board. This board did much to increase the efficiency of the roads, but the demands of the war greatly increased the traffic and there was at times great congestion. In November the trainmen and conductors began to agitate for an increase of forty per cent in pay, and a situation similar to that at the time of the passage of the Adamson law might have been created, had not the government stepped in, and acting under the authority of Congress, taken control of the roads. This was done to insure still more efficient operation, and to secure this the government had to make large advances in money for the improvement of the lines. The President by proclamation took over the railroads on December 26, and placed their operation in the hands of William G. McAdoo, Secretary of the Treasury, as director-general. The government was at once met with the persistent wage problem,